Blogging the Institutes | 1.13.8 |The Word is Eternal

“Blogging the Institutes” is my on-going attempt to paraphrase John Calvin’s work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. You can find out more about the series in the Introduction. For all the posts in this series, check out the Master List.

The Word is Eternal

Certain people try to deny Jesus’ eternity while not outright deny His divinity. They argue that the “Word” came into existence when God opened His mouth to create the world. They imagine some change in the essence of God. Some names of God refer are applied to Him after He did some work. For example, He is called “Creator of the heavens and earth” after He made everything. But true faith does not recognize any change in the essence of God. If change in God’s essence takes place, then James 1:17 would not be true: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Therefore, it is intolerable to believe that the Word, which was always with God, had a beginning at the beginning of the world.

They even go so far to argue that when Moses talks about God speaking for the “first time” that no Word existed in God before. You don’t need to go that far, however. Just because something isn’t brought out clearly until a certain time, doesn’t mean it did not exist previously. I draw a very different conclusion. At the very moment when God said, “Let there be light,” the energy of the Word was immediately exerted. Since it was immediately exerted, it must have existed long before. If people ask, “How long before?” they will find that it was without beginning. No certain period of time is defined. Jesus Himself said, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). Even before John mentions the creation of the world in His gospel, he writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). Therefore, we conclude that the Word was eternally begotten by God. The Word lived with God in eternity. In this way, the Word’s true essence–His divinity and His eternity–are established.